Accounting for Social Insurance

OFFICE
OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

Accounting
for Social Insurance

AGENCY:
Office of Management and Budget.

ACTION:
Notice of Document Availability.

SUMMARY:
This Notice indicates the availability of Statement of
Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) No. 17,"Accounting for Social Insurance." The statement was recommended
by the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) and adopted
in its entirety by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

ADDRESSES:
Copies of SFFAS No. 17, "Accounting for Social Insurance,"
may be obtained for $12.00 each from the Superintendent of Documents,
Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402-9325 (telephone
202-512-1800), Stock No. 041-001-00540-4.

SUPPLEMENTARY
INFORMATION: This Notice indicates the availability of
the seventeenth Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards
(SFFAS), "Accounting for Social Insurance." The standard was recommended
by the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) and adopted
in its entirety by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on
November 19, 1999.

Under
a Memorandum of Understanding among the General Accounting Office,
the Department of the Treasury, and OMB on Federal Government Accounting
Standards, the Comptroller General, the Secretary of the Treasury,
and the Director of OMB decide upon accounting principles and standards
after considering the recommendations of FASAB. After agreement
to specific principles and standards, a notice of document availability
is published in the Federal Register and distributed throughout
the Federal Government.

On
September 30, the FASAB Principals signed a revised MOU agreeing
that future FASAB statements will become final 90 days after FASAB
has submitted a proposed standard to each of the three FASAB Principals,
so long as no Principal objects during the 90-day period. OMB, GAO,
and Treasury would continue to have veto power over any FASAB action
and, in addition, they would maintain their statutory authority
to establish and adopt accounting standards for the Federal Government.

Under
this new agreement, FASAB will be responsible for the Federal
Register notification process for future statements. Since
this statement and one other were undergoing final review by September
30, they will be processed under the previous procedures. The other
statement will be forwarded by OMB within the next few weeks for
publication in the Federal Register.

Under
a Memorandum of Understanding among the General Accounting Office,
the Department of the Treasury, and OMB on Federal Government Accounting
Standards, the Comptroller General, the Secretary of the Treasury,
and the Director of OMB decide upon accounting principles and standards
after considering the recommendations of FASAB. After agreement
to specific principles and standards, a notice of document availability
is published in the Federal Register and distributed throughout
the Federal Government.

This
Notice is available on the OMB home page on the Internet which is
currently located at /OMB, under the caption "Federal Register
Submissions."